Remembering (and Celebrating) The Kids In The Hall
Sean MurphyThis weekend PopMatters is revisiting an outstanding feature from a couple of years ago: The Best of TV on DVD. Definitely worth checking out. My entry, below, was on the gone…
If Two Jazz Fans Fight on the Internet, Does Anyone Hear It?
Kind of like two trees falling in the forest, right? Well, for anyone (and I mean "one") who may wonder what it sounds like when two jazz fans fight, here…
You See This Sign?: Appreciating ‘Five Easy Pieces’
MacMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Jake Gittes in Chinatown; Jack “Here’s Johnny!” Torrence in The Shining—these aren’t characters from famous movies, they are permanent fixtures of American…
The Doors: America’s Star-Spangled Band (Revisited)
The 4th of July presents an at least two irresistible reasons to talk about The Doors. One: Jim Morrison took his last bath on July 3, 1971 in Paris. R.I.P.…
No One Has Ever Done Anything as Well as John Coltrane Played the Saxophone
The question isn’t, really, about who might be interested in this documentary; it is about who might not be. For fans who already know everything, or those indifferent to jazz…
Ali Farka Touré’s Finished Business
There are usually two distinctive types of posthumous releases in music. The first and more frequent is the one that makes you cringe, often involving the rapacious pillaging of the…
A Kinder, Gentler Jethro Tull
Meanwhile back in the year…1978? It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The progressive rock monolith (immortalized, or infamous, from the cover of Emerson, Lake…
And in the end the list you take is equal to the list you make…
So: it's been five full decades that The Beatles have dominated music, our minds and, increasingly our wallets. Although its release was an understated affair, you might have heard something…
Dan Auerbach, In Search of the Authentic Sound
During my recent discussion with Dan Auerbach, there was heavy construction underway in the unit above mine: the refrain of hammering, drill work, and boot steps were like a Greek…
July 7: When The Two Sevens Clash
July 7, 1977: When the two sevens clash. You can, and should, appreciate Culture's masterpiece all days of the year, but on July 7 you better recognize. I wrote about Culture…